


Unwittingly Conquer

by WolfInWonderland



Series: Ignoct Writing Weekend 2018 [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Ignoct Writing Weekend 2018, M/M, added chapter 2, ignis is forcibly made to be an advisor and noctis is oblivious, over 5000 words, well one-sided enemies to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-05-20 00:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14884322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfInWonderland/pseuds/WolfInWonderland
Summary: When Ignis Scientia was four years old, his homeland of Tenebrae was caught in the crossfire of a Niflheim attack.When Ignis Scientia was eighteen years old, he committed his first ever real attempt to kill the prince.When Ignis Scientia was twenty-three years old, he wore the ring of the Lucii to save Noctis’ life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I love the trope of enemies to lovers, but have never actually worked with it myself, so I hope I fulfilled it enough. If not, then this quickly got away from me and at least the word count is there.
> 
> For Saturday: enemies to lovers/over 5000 words

When Ignis Scientia was four years old, his homeland of Tenebrae was caught in the crossfire of a Niflheim attack.

Ignis had no idea what was happening, just that his world exploded in a blast of fire and that his parents, who had just been standing over him to wish him a good day as they left for work, were now collapsed in a bloody heap over each other on the ground.

Ignis cried out as another explosion rang in the air and he fell on top of his mother’s despondent body.

The next thing he knew, the tall form of Insomnia’s King Regis was standing above him.

The King stared down at Ignis intently, searchingly, until he offered his hand to Ignis. 

Ignis was too numb to realize what the gesture meant as gunshots blared behind him, but Regis simply took his hand back and called to someone over his shoulder. 

Ignis wasn’t able to decipher the words over the ringing in his ears but he was able to scream out when a pair of arms wrapped around his waist to lift him away from his dead parents.

Ignis instantly went into a rage and thrashed as strongly as his young body could manage.

“Calm him,” he heard Regis say as the King turned his back and Ignis’ world dissolved into darkness.

When he awoke, Ignis was being held in some type of room with a small white bed and a desk pushed off in a corner. Multiple people came in hourly to ask him questions and offer him food or water, but soon, those people instead came at him with books and complicated texts that he was forced to read aloud and was after tested on.

The material itself wasn’t difficult to Ignis and soon he had realized that the people who came to him were tutors who forced him to continue taking exam after exam to see how much knowledge he retained from the texts.

Ignis didn’t say much outside of when he was questioned, and even then his answers were monosyllabic and to the point. The tutors always looks angry after Ignis decided to ignore them and their overly basic lessons, but Ignis didn’t care.

He learned how to manipulate those people. Learned how and when to speak so that they would accidentally answer the questions he turned onto them.

Where was he? In Insomnia, the capital of Lucis and inside the Citadel.

Why was he being tested? He was the son of the famed Scientia family that had opted out of serving the King but was known for their immeasurable brilliance.

Why hadn’t Regis come to see him? Do not speak of the King by his name. He has better things to do than check on an orphan.

Where were his parents’ bodies? On the streets of Tenebrae where they had fallen. There wasn’t time to move them after Ignis had been collected.

Ignis refused to speak again for three days after that answer.

Six months passed in this way, Ignis only able to guess at the changing days by when the tutors came and went, but every day was repetitive. He would wake up, be given food, someone would come in to either bring him new material to read or a test to challenge what he had learned the previous week, read by himself, then go to sleep. 

Ignis was going crazy with how monotonous everything in his new life was.

Until one day when his schedule changed.

A large burly man came into his room during the scheduled time when a tutor was supposed to arrive and he ordered Ignis to follow after him.

Ignis tried to refuse but was dragged out by his arm.

It was the first time Ignis had seen what was outside of his holdings and he tried to memorize every hallway they walked through. Finally, they stopped at a pair of large wooden doors and the man pushed them open. Inside there were different weapons hung up and lining one of the walls and what looked like weights and upright sacks pushed off into a corner that took up almost a third of the room. 

The man pulled Ignis inside and maneuvered him to the weapons.

“The King wants to see how you can handle combat,” the man said and released Ignis’ arm.

“He does know I am only four,” Ignis replied stiffly as he messaged the area he was held too tightly.

The man scoffed. “Never too early to start training,” he said and motioned to the wall.

Ignis glared but had to admit that the opportunity to be armed was too great to pass up.

His eyes traced over all the options and finally settled on some thin and lightweight looking knives. He picked one up and tested his grip.

“Daggers, huh?” the man mumbled to himself and Ignis looked up at him.

“You’re a small enough thing. Speed will work well for you.” He took the –dagger— from Ignis and threw it at a wooden figure placed across the room.

“Run,” he deadpanned as he crossed his arms. “Let’s see how fast you are.”

***

When Ignis Scientia was six years old, his new life was filled with increasingly difficult lessons to enhance his intelligence, and training programs in multiple forms of combat designed to mold his body into a weapon.

In the span of two years, Ignis had seen Regis a total of three times. Once, after an exam period lead by a man who was introduced as his uncle, Innes Scientia. Once, after a training session conducted by the King’s Shield, Clarus Amicitia, that had been so exhausting that Ignis had collapsed on the floor and was unable to get up. And the last time was when Ignis had tried to escape the Citadel but was caught by Regis himself.

The King had looked at Ignis with such pity in his eyes that the then five year old had gotten sick, and Ignis had not been allowed to walk alone by himself again.

Once Ignis officially turned six though, he was granted another meeting with Regis, but this time he was also introduced to his son.

“Noctis,” the King said the name with such reverence that Ignis couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “This is Ignis Scientia. He will be your Advisor and friend from now on.”

That was the first Ignis had heard of such a thing and his eyes snapped up to look at Regis.

“Ignis, this is my son, Noctis. He will be your prince and charge.”

Ignis shot his stare to the prince.

Noctis looked up at him with such awe and wonder that Ignis felt like he would be ill.

He instantly hated the small child.

Those eyes had never seen death or hardship. Nor had that body ever been pushed to its physical and mental limits without rest or reprieve for weeks on end.

This is what he was brought here for, Ignis realized. To be an Advisor, a tool, a plaything for this prince Ignis didn’t even know had existed until now.

Ignis could feel his blood boiling underneath his skin and before he could move and lunge at the boy, a hand instantly tightened on his shoulder.

Ignis looked back and saw Clarus glare down at him.

Ignis returned his gaze to Noctis and forced himself to smile.

“It’s my pleasure to meet you, your Highness.” Ignis shrugged of Clarus’ grip as reached out and took a tiny hand in his before anyone could stop him. Ignis knelt in front of the child, felt Clarus stiffen at his back, and smiled wider.

“I hope and aspire to be whatever you may need me to be.”

Ignis’ heartbeat continued to thump resoundingly in his ears as the prince smiled brightly at him with a blush on his small cheeks.

***

When Ignis Scientia was ten years old, he was molded into the perfect chamberlain for the young eight-year-old prince of Insomnia. 

“You are meant to clean after his Highness wherever he goes; make his tea whenever he gets thirsty; call for his meals at the appropriate times, and learn to cook so that you may take over his meals as he ages; and stand up straight Ignis, you are representing the royal family!”

Every day there was a new chore for him to learn in order to better take care of the prince, under the ever watchful eyes of the Citadel Kingsglaive meant to keep him in line around the prince, and every day Ignis refined his mental map of the Citadel along with the routines of the staff.

“I hate tea,” Noctis complained one afternoon to Ignis while they were in between their lessons. “It tastes like I’m licking grass.”

Ignis was proud of himself for only allowing his fingers to twitch in his annoyance. “Tea is very healthy for you, Highness, and it will be mandatory for you to drink it during every meeting once you get older.”

“But it’s gross!” the eight-year-old yelled and buried his face in his crossed arms on the table he was sitting at. 

Ignis sighed. “You must still drink it, even if it is gross.”

Noctis peeked up from his bangs to stare at Ignis as he moved around the table to set up for lunch.

“Do you like tea, Ignis?”

“It is fine,” Ignis replied without looking away from what he was doing. 

Noctis pushed his cup further away from him and closer to Ignis’ side of the table. “Then you drink it.”

“I will not,” Ignis scoffed and finally turned to properly look at the prince for the first time that afternoon.

Noctis’ big blue eyes pleaded with him.

“You’re my Ad…Advisor; you’re supposed to help me with these things.”

“Drinking your tea is not something an Advisor helps you with,” stupid, Ignis added mentally. 

“Then can you help me as my friend?” Noctis perked up and his pleading eyes turned hopeful.

That was something a friend would do, Ignis thought to himself, only able to take a guess since he did not have any friends outside of the one-sided relationship Noctis had with him. He needed to keep up his friendly appearance for the King, so should he drink the stupid tea?

“Fine,” Ignis ground out through clenched teeth and grabbed the cup. 

“Yay!” Noctis cried out and threw his arms into the air.

Such a child, Ignis scoffed to himself as he took a sip of the drink. 

“It tastes fine,” Ignis said and took another gulp.

“You can drink all my tea from now on,” Noctis cheered before sticking his tongue out at the still full teapot. “It’s a new degree.”

“Decree,” Ignis corrected offhandedly, then blinked once he realized he unconsciously helped the small twerp learn something.

“Decree,” Noctis nodded.

Ignis finished the rest of the cup and slammed the glass back onto the table. Noctis jumped.

“My apologies,” Ignis said flippantly and went back to ignoring the prince to complete his other duties.

***

When Ignis Scientia was fifteen years old, the prince was attacked by a loose daemon and barely made it out alive.

Such a shame, Ignis thought as he waited outside of the hospital room for Noctis to be released into his care, that the daemon had failed.

When Ignis had heard the news from Clarus’ son that Noctis was in the hospital, Ignis had internally jumped in joy.

Let Regis stew in loss, Ignis had thought pleased, and have him know pain like Ignis had as a child.

But Noctis had been healed in time to save his life and the only repercussion was that he would have to be confined to a wheelchair until he could learn to walk again. And of course, Ignis had been placed in charge to care for the thirteen-year-old prince.

Ignis huffed as he remembered the King telling him to watch Noctis in his place and wondered why the idiotic man had ever trust Ignis within two feet of his precious child.

“Mr. Scientia?”

Ignis was taken out of his thoughts and pushed himself away from the wall he was leaning against. “Yes?”

“Mr. Caelum is all set to go whenever you are ready.”

Ignis nodded to the doctor and went into Noctis’ hospital room to collect him.

The prince was a sorry sight; hunched over in his wheelchair with his pale arms draped lifelessly over the sides of it. Noctis’ dull blue eyes actually brightened somewhat when he saw Ignis enter the room and Ignis mentally rolled his eyes at how puppy-like the prince acted around him.

“Ignis?”

“I’ve been ordered to take you back to the Citadel,” Ignis said as he circled the sitting boy to grab at the chair’s handles. “You’ve been released from the hospital starting today.”

Noctis didn’t childishly cheer as Ignis thought he would. Instead, he merely turned his head to gaze at Ignis.

“Oh. I hope it wasn’t a problem for you to come get me.”

Ignis stopped short at the words. Noctis, the prince who still refused to drink his tea, was actually trying to be considerate for someone other than himself?

Ignis began moving and pushed Noctis out of the room. 

“My duties have been suspended for the day so that I could focus on you,” Ignis replied instead of responding directly to what was said. 

“Oh,” Noctis sighed again and was quiet the rest of the way to Ignis’ car.

How strange to witness a quiet Noctis who didn’t complain to Ignis the moment they were together. As much as Ignis appreciated the silence, he wasn’t sure what to do when Noctis wasn’t the one to keep up their friendship farce.

“Can you get yourself inside of the car?” Ignis asked once they reached his sleek black royal-issued car and looked down at the prince.

Noctis blushed and hid his eyes underneath his bangs. He shook his head no.

“Gods,” Ignis scorned underneath his breath, but Noctis appeared to have heard him anyway and flinched.

“Raise up your arms then,” Ignis instructed and proceeded to lift Noctis out of the wheelchair. With all of the harsh training Ignis had had to complete when he was a child, he had built up enough upper body strength that lifting Noctis was as easy as carrying a bag of potatoes.

The prince was absolutely silent on the drive back. They had to repeat the process again once they arrived at the Citadel parking lot and Ignis pushed Noctis through the hallways he knew would be the most empty from his extensive study of the patterns of the staff. 

Once they reached Noctis’ quarters, the prince thrust his arm out to stop Ignis from pushing him anymore.

“I’ll be fine on my own,” he said without looking up at Ignis and Ignis crossed his arms over his chest.

“Really? You’ve suddenly sprouted wings to carry you to the kitchen and make yourself some dinner? Or got the arm strength to lift yourself into your bed once you’ve changed to sleep? Or maybe your legs have miraculously healed and you can suddenly work the washroom by yourself—”

“I said I’d be fine!” Noctis yelled and finally looked up at Ignis for the first time since they left the hospital. “You don’t want to be here anyway, so why are you still here?”

“Because I’ve been ordered to,” Ignis said in a tone of voice as if he were speaking to a toddler.

Noctis pointed at him. “Then I’m overriding that order. I order you to leave me alone!”

“That’s not how this works.”

Ignis could see that the prince was getting so worked up over himself that tears were starting to form at the corners of his eyes. 

“I thought you were happy to see me?” Ignis drawled. “You certainly were back at the hospital.”

“That was before!”

“Before?”

“Before you saw how useless I am!” Noctis shouted and turned away from Ignis as he bunched his hands into fists on his lap.

Ignis rolled his eyes at Noctis’ display.

“I knew you’d be useless back when I was first told to pick you up. Actually seeing you in a wheelchair doesn’t change much.”

Noctis shook his head. “I couldn’t get into the car…”

“I thought you had more arm strength, Highness. You’d already begun your training with Gladiolus; I’d expected you to be further along than you are apparently.”

“You’re stuck here to look after me.”

“No different than any other day,” Ignis said a little too honestly and he turned to walk into the kitchen to begin making dinner.

“What good is a prince who is stuck in a wheelchair?!” Noctis screamed from the other room and Ignis clenched his hands in irritation. There was the self-centered child who was missing all afternoon.

“I’m not under orders to take care of a prince, Highness. I’m supposed to be here to take care of a friend!” Ignis spoke louder than he intended to in his exasperation, and without thinking, until he realized that Noctis had gone deathly silent after his words.

Ignis mouthed what he had said and blushed all the way down his neck.

“Ordered to be a friend!” Ignis stuttered out and even though those words were more truth filled than what he said before, they came out sounding like overwrought lies even to Ignis’ ears. 

Noctis still didn’t say anything and Ignis opted to hide in the kitchen under the cover of preparing food to avoid going back out to face the prince.

***

When Ignis Scientia was eighteen years old, he committed his first ever real attempt to kill the prince.

Unfortunately he realized too late that his plan to steal Noctis out of the city and watch the stars together could be used as the perfect opportunity to murder him, so he had to think quickly and improvise.

As Noctis reclined against the hood of Ignis’ car to comfortably stare up into the sky, Ignis began plotting all the different ways he could toss the teen off the side of the road and still have a believable enough excuse to get him out of a jail sentence.

“Hey, Ignis,” Noctis muttered and turned his head to look at Ignis. 

Ignis jumped in surprise at being called out of his thoughts and sat up quickly from his own reclined position.

“Yes Highness?”

“You’ve never told me why you have such a different accent from everyone else in Insomnia,” the sixteen year old asked. Ignis thought that now might be a good enough time to see if he could call over some daemon to try and finish what was started years ago.

“…I was born in Tenebrae and lived there for a few years before it was attacked by Niflheim,” Ignis said and licked his lips afterwards. Ignis had never told Noctis the truth of their relationship, or what fueled the farce of it, and he wasn’t exactly sure why it was never brought up before now. 

It had been years since he last feared Clarus or the repercussions he would face if Ignis ever told the prince the truth of Ignis’ background, and Ignis still hated Regis with a passion so it wasn’t like he had kept quiet to please the old man either. So why not tell Noctis that Ignis had practically been abused his whole life in order to be shaped into the perfect Advisor servant for him?

“Oh,” Noctis said and turned his attention back to the stars.

“Were you rescued then and brought to Insomnia?”

“I was certainly brought to Insomnia,” Ignis muttered and clenched his hands at his sides. Maybe he could just kick Noctis off the car hood and drive away before the prince knew what was happening.

“…Do you ever wish you could leave?”

“No,” Ignis said quickly. There was no place that he could go to, and his need to see revenge on the King was too great for him to try and escape again.

“Oh,” Noctis said for a second time in as many minutes and Ignis tsked at the prince’s tutor’s lack of ability to teach him a wider range of vocabulary. 

“It’s just, sometimes you seem so sad that I think it would be better if you just ran away and never looked back.”

Ignis’ hands unclenched. 

“Really now?” Ignis muttered and moved back into his original reclined position. “I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I wasn’t your Advisor, Highness.” The truth that was buried underneath the words was a little too much for Ignis to admit to himself, so he decided to ignore the way his heart throbbed painfully in his chest.

He might have been able to follow his father’s passion of business and ended up still meeting the royal family under a world’s collection of different circumstances. Or he might have helped his mother run her own bakery in such a reality, as was her dream when he was growing up.

He could have become some type of rogue against Niflheim if he had never been taken by the King and led a rebellion to change the course of the world. He might have fallen into a manic depression and lived in the slums of the ruins of his homeland.

He’d most likely be dead.

“Probably be a teacher or something,” Noctis thought aloud and tapped a finger against the hood, managing to draw Ignis back to the present reality he lived in. “You’re too brainy to not do something with that mind of yours.”

Ignis hummed in distraction as he tried to shake off his morose mood. Maybe he could trip Noctis up so that he would scrape his knees or palms and be in pain for the rest of the night.

“Yeah, a teacher sounds right. Or even a painter. Become one of those artsy people who create things with their hands and different ways of seeing the world.”

Noctis’ finger stopped tapping, but his hand inched closer to Ignis’ slowly. Ignis noticed, but moved too late to do anything to stop it. 

Noctis hesitantly reached for Ignis’ hand and after a few seconds grasped it and intertwined their fingers. 

Ignis jolted but didn’t take his hand back due to shock.

Noctis refused to move his gaze from the stars, but Ignis could see out of the corner of his eye that the prince had a blush completely covering his face. 

“Thank you for taking me out here tonight,” Noctis whispered. “I really needed a break from everything.”

Ignis held his breath for a good minute before he let it out slowly. 

Ignis finally decided that he would kill the prince by making him drink a whole cup of tea on his own once they got back to the Citadel.

***

When Ignis Scientia was twenty-two years old, Insomnia fell and King Regis died.

Ignis should have felt happy out on the road and far away from the same carnage that had taken away his parents and original home; his kidnappers were dead, his tormentors were dead as well since Ignis was almost positive that Clarus and Innes had both died at the King’s side when the wall had fallen, and all the pretense of his fake obedience was at last nullified. Ignis did not have to pretend to care for Noctis or Gladiolus or Prompto anymore like he had had to for the past sixteen years of his life.

Yet he still stayed after he delivered the news to the group.

The shocked eyes of his supposed comrades did not lighten his heart of its burdens, and Noctis’ teary-eyed gaze as he pleaded for Ignis to be lying did nothing but provide a dull throb in his chest when Ignis had to shake his head and tell them all that Insomnia and its people had all fallen.

The three others had split up to be alone with their thoughts, yet Ignis managed to find Noctis easily as he unthinkingly went to the beach off Galdin Quay. 

Noctis sat with his arms around his legs as he stared out into the ocean and Ignis quietly sat next to him.

“…Highness…” Ignis started, but honestly had nothing he could say to ease the prince from his sorrows.

“Aren’t you happy?” Noctis asked; his words muffled since his head was buried in his arms. “The city that tortured you is finally gone.”

Ignis wanted to be shocked, but didn’t have the energy to feel anything as he watched the darkening water’s surface glitter with reflected light.

“Insomnia has fallen and my father is dead. You should be happy; hell! You shouldn’t even be here anymore! Why haven’t you run off screaming in joy that you no longer have to serve the son of the man that kidnapped you!”

Noctis’ words got louder and louder until he stood up and began shouting down at Ignis, tears running off his chin and falling to the sand below. 

Noctis rubbed at his eyes fruitlessly and began openly sobbing into his fists.

Ignis stood immediately and collected Noctis in his arms and the prince sobbed into his chest instead. Ignis could feel the tears being soaked up into his shirt, and for once he didn’t care about his appearance as he ushered Noctis back down to the ground until they were both on their knees.

It took several long minutes before the prince stopped crying, but he stayed where he was against Ignis’ chest even after his tears had dried.

“I confronted him you know, before we left. I demanded that he tell me where you were from and why you were given to me as a kid, and he told me everything. I yelled at him for an hour. You can’t just…take a kid and force him to be made perfectly for someone else. He couldn’t just…do what he did to you and get away with it. He just looked sad the entire time I screamed at him and by the end I walked out without hearing what he had to say. I don’t think that he had anything to say. And when we left, when he sent us away, I thought that was his way of avoiding me. I planned on helping you run away once we got out here, but I guess you don’t need to run away when there’s no one to stop you, huh?”

That was the most Noctis had spoken in one sitting in years, since his accident with the daemon, and Ignis wasn’t sure what to do with the sudden onslaught of words that came out of his mouth.

Ignis still didn’t let Noctis go and instead ran his fingers through Noctis’ unruly hair.

“But even after all that, all he did to you and forced you to go through, I still couldn’t completely hate him. He was a good dad to me, a kind man to his son. Yet I didn’t, I didn’t say anything to him when we left. I never said goodbye. And now I won’t ever be able to say anything to him ever again.”

Noctis’ words were whispered and hard to hear over the sounds of the water, but Ignis could still hear the anguish and pain in the words clear as if they were spoken directly into his ear. 

Noctis had gotten angry for him, defended him, planned to set Ignis free at the risk of angering the father he still loved and had looked up to for his entire life. Ignis could feel Noctis’ pain of wanting to care for his friend and wanting to care for his father while also thinking that he had just lost both in one swoop. It was heartbreaking, if Ignis had to put a word to it, but he didn’t know what to do with the information now that it was inside his head.

“I wouldn’t have left,” Ignis decided to say into Noctis’ hair as he continued running his fingers through it. “You could have offered me all the world’s freedom and I wouldn’t have taken a single step away from you.”

“Why?” Noctis sobbed and buried his head deeper into Ignis’ chest.

“Because I was given to you, just as you were given to me. Our contracts haven’t been nullified yet, Highness.”

Noctis’ tears once again soaked through Ignis’ shirt and Ignis only held Noctis tighter in response to it.

***

When Ignis Scientia was twenty-three years old, he wore the ring of the Lucii to save Noctis’ life.

“I will not let you harm him! I will not let you take him away from me! He is mine and I am his! I will die before you touch a single hair on his head or so help me I will kill you myself even if you are the first Lucis Caelum. No god, no daemon, no prophecy will ever get through me to hurt him, do you understand?!”

And Ignis placed the ring on his finger. He felt power surge through his body, felt fire flow through his veins as magic poured from his hands. He saw Ardyn Lucis Caelum back away and run from him in fear of Ignis’ strength, then his world faded to black and Ignis wasn’t aware of anything.

*

When Ignis Scientia came to, he was blind.

“I’ve taken away your childhood, your freedom, and now your sight. I can never repay you for all that you’ve lost,” Noctis had cried and Ignis did his best to kiss away the tears he knew were going down the prince’s cheeks. 

“I’d do it all again if it meant you’d be safe,” Ignis replied and Noctis took his head between his hands and kissed him soundly on the lips. 

Unfortunately, despite Ignis’ sacrifice and his promise to keep Noctis safe, it was only a month before Noctis was locked inside the Crystal and the world had fallen into an endless night.

***

When Ignis Scientia was thirty-three years old, Noctis Lucis Caelum returned from the crystal, defeated Ardyn, and revived the sun. 

Noctis spun Ignis around in his arms with happiness and relief and he kissed every inch of Ignis’ face and neck. 

The prince, the King, returned to Ignis’ lips and whispered against them.

“I love you.”

“As I love you, Noctis,” Ignis replied with a smile. It was the first time Ignis had spoken Noctis’ name aloud and it tasted sweet on his tongue. Noctis continued to devour him for the rest of the night.

Their moans and pleas and cries of love were enough to make up for the ten years Noctis had missed and the twenty-seven years Ignis had been alone.

***

When Ignis Scientia was thirty-four years old, he married King Noctis and helped to usher in a new world reborn with the sun. 

For the first time in his life, he thanked King Regis for bringing him to Insomnia and giving him to Noctis because he never would have known the love he knew now if Ignis had never been an enemy the prince needed to unwittingly conquer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the comments I received on this story, I worked on giving Regis' perspective in this world that he created for himself. I tried to keep the focus on him as a father before being a King, so hopefully his emotions of fear from not knowing what the right thing to do comes through. Just a short additional chapter for anyone who wanted a little more, and I hope this update offers just a little more weight for what everyone goes through in the main story

Regis Lucis Caelum had a unique connection to the Crystal his family had kept safe for centuries. He used its power, along with the Ring of the Lucii, to protect Insomnia and all his people, and in return the Crystal offered him visions of the future from time to time. 

It showed him the death of his wife. It gave him the prophecy of his son’s future. He saw his death, and Insomnia’s death, and Noctis’ death one after the other and accepted them as the reality he had to live with as proclaimed by the Astrals themselves. Regis lived with those visions, built the remainder of his life around them, and nothing ever changed once he had seen the future.

All his belief was shattered once Noctis turned two and Regis was given a rework to the vision he had seen of his son’s death.

The Crystal now showed him the fall of Tenebrae. The ash in the sky as Imperial airships dropped bomb after bomb to level the beautiful city. It also showed him a young boy, one who was crying over the bodies of his parents as he was approached by Niflheim’s Chancellor, Ardyn Izunia. Ardyn took in the child, corrupted him within the Empire, transformed him into his servant of evil that massacred entire countries once given a single command.

The child grew up to be beautiful, intelligent, and the most deadly weapon created underneath Ardyn’s instruction.

Regis saw the child, the man he would become, kill off Clarus’ boy in the heat of battle. The bespectacled man also took down a blond gunner as easily as if he were a flower underneath his boot. Regis also saw how the man and Noctis were destined to fight. Noctis’ prophecy was still in play, his son still needed to die in order to return the sun, however the man and Noctis killed each other instead, swords protruding from each of their backs as they leaned against the other in a death’s embrace. Noctis’ death would be for nothing, taken down before he would be able to fulfill the Astral’s desires and the world would rot to ruin without the sun ever rising again. 

Regis had never fought against a vision, didn’t know how to go against the magic of the Crystal and the future itself, but he was determined to try now.

He traveled to Tenebrae right before its collapse. He found the child who was smiling and laughing with his parents on what was supposed to be an average day. 

He stared down at the crying would be killer as he was covered in the blood of his parents and offered him his hand for a brief moment before ordering the child to be taken back to Insomnia with them and placed under intense observation for the moment when he would change from a scared little boy into the murdering machine Regis saw he was capable of becoming.

Little Ignis Scientia was torn from his destiny and Regis wasn’t sure what to do with him.

His Advisor suggested trying to train the boy into becoming the next Advisor for Noctis in order to have a reason to keep him under their surveillance at all times. He offered to pose as his uncle, with the hope of gaining little Ignis’ trust and obedience, but the boy was already too intelligent for his mind to be contained.

Ignis’ tutors expressed their concern that he would become unstable, a mind too large for his head Regis was warned, and Regis ordered his Advisor to up Ignis’ studies to the point of exhaustion. 

Clarus also expressed his concern that a brilliant mind with no outlet was bound to self-destruct, so Regis also order Ignis to be trained and pushed to his physical limits in order to keep the boy busy.

The first year, Regis was too weak to see the child in person again. He knew that he was torturing the boy, abusing him underneath the guise of bettering him, and Regis was honest enough with himself that he was not man enough to face the consequences of his ignorance at altering fate. And even after all he had done to poor Ignis, the visions never stopped. Ignis still grew up to battle against Insomnia, against Noctis and his friends, and nothing Regis did to stop it changed anything. 

When he found Ignis trying to escape the next year, Regis almost allowed him to go, but instead decided to hire a Crownsguard to chaperone him wherever Ignis went after that.

“He will need to be bound to his Highness,” his Advisor told him. “If we cannot break his anger, nor tire him of it, maybe we can replace it with a loyalty to the prince.”

Regis refused, at first. How dare they suggest he allow an unstable child to be near his son? Take care of him by providing meals and drink, both of which were so easy to poison, and allow him the ability to be alone with Noctis as it would be necessary should Ignis be given the job? No. Regis would not allow it.

Clarus was the one to break him down to the idea with a single promise. 

“If that boy harms one hair on your son’s head, he will not live to regret his decision.”

So Regis introduced the two, told Noctis that he was getting a new friend and told Ignis that he was getting a new charge. Ignis took Noctis’ hand then and Regis summoned his sword behind his back to spear the child if he made one wrong move, but Ignis had bowed and promised himself to Noctis in front of Regis and Clarus as witnesses. 

That very same night, Regis was given a new vision. 

Instead of a man drenched in blood and smiling as he died against Noctis, he saw Ignis grow up at Noctis’ side. Regis saw as the two grew closer, taking years to fully understand each other but eventually growing so close that Ignis sacrificed his eyesight in order to change Noctis’ future and alter the very prophecy Regis had wept over every night since Noctis’ birth. 

Ignis saved Noctis, and Noctis saved Ignis. For the first time since Regis acquired him, he knew where Ignis stood in his care. 

He ordered the two children to constantly be by each other. Regis still had some fear that Ignis would revert and end up harming Noctis, but as the years went on and Ignis never took a single step out of line, Regis was finally able to breath easily even as his death drew ever near.

Regis made sure that Noctis never knew anything about Ignis’ background or upbringing, he made it an unofficial law inside the Citadel to never speak of it once Noctis began roaming the castle by himself, and he was confident that his son didn’t know a thing about the dark stain in Regis’ past.

So imagine Regis’ surprise when, the night before Regis was going to die, Noctis barreled into his room and demanded to know about Ignis’ history. 

There was nothing Regis could do but reveal the truth. He spoke as if in confession, offering his soul to Noctis to scrutinize for his sins, and Noctis gave a cruel judgment.

His son yelled at him for how wrong he was to treat Ignis in such a way. Noctis belittled him for every decision Regis had made up until that point and correctly accused him that Regis had not planned on telling him any of it.

Regis watched as his son stormed out of the room and knew that the last true conversation they would ever have had been a fight long time coming. 

Noctis walked away the next day without saying goodbye and Regis’ last living thought was that Noctis’ back looked so much larger than he ever remembered it being.

By some grace of the gods, or their punishment, Regis got to watch over Noctis as he continued his journey down fate. 

All the royal arms, all the fights and breakdowns. How he confessed to knowing Ignis’ past and the confrontation he’d had with Regis over it. The reveal that he would have set Ignis free despite thinking he would have gone against Regis’ wishes.

Regis had a long time to think about it, but he eventually came to the conclusion that if Noctis had let Ignis go, he would not have been angry over it.

He watched as Ignis confessed that he wouldn’t have left Noctis’ side if he was given the chance at freedom.

It took Regis a little longer to realize that if he were still alive, he would have set them both free of their fates to run away together.

He saw the toll the journey was taking on Noctis and he was so thankful that Ignis was by his side to keep him company through it.

Regis watched in horror when Ignis stood against Ardyn, against the man who would have changed the entire course of destiny, in order to protect Noctis and saw in horrific fascination as the Lucii’s fire burned away Ignis’ eyes in exchange for Noctis’ life. In that moment, and in a future that had yet to come.

He mourned with Noctis as his son wept over Ignis’ recovery bed, and cried when Ignis kissed away Noctis’ tears as well as he could with not being able to see them.

Regis begged and bargained and pleaded with the Astrals, but Noctis was still taken into the Crystal and it still took ten years for him to get out of it.

Regis watched Ignis during that time. Watched over the blind man who had suffered and sacrificed and hurt so much for Noctis and yet continued to stay loyal to him since the day they first met as children.

And Regis kissed each of the Astral’s feet the day Noctis returned home and survived his fight against Ardyn.

He wept again when he saw Noctis kiss Ignis for the first time, and turned away to give them privacy once they moved to a secluded room to enjoy each other.

Regis cheered the day the two got married and stared down into Ignis’ upturned face as the man smiled up at the sky.

Whatever Ignis was thinking, Regis hoped he was happy.

The gods offered one last gift to Regis as a reward for bringing the two together and he was allowed to walk invisibly on Eos again for a single night. He spent it in the married couple’s wedding room as they slept, watching over them both to keep their dreams light and peaceful. Once the morning sun’s rays peeked in through the window, Regis leaned down to kiss Noctis’ forehead and whispered just how proud of him he was.

Regis turned to walk away, but stopped beside Ignis’ head. He leaned down to offer him a kiss as well, swore his own loyalty to the man who protected his son for all these years for when they would meet again, and finally, finally, apologized to the child he had unfairly treated because he did not know how to give the love that would have saved Ignis earlier. 

He straightened, wiped the tear from his eye, and left the room to leave the couple to awaken on their own.

The sun fully rose into the sky and Regis was allowed to rest until he could meet his two boys again in the afterlife.


End file.
